Case Docket

Summaries of our current and historical civil rights cases.

We have a rich history of litigating important civil rights cases on behalf of the most vulnerable in society. Our cases have smashed remnants of Jim Crow segregation; destroyed some of the nation’s most notorious white supremacist groups; and upheld the rights of minorities, children, women, the disabled and others who faced discrimination and exploitation. Many of our cases have changed institutional practices, stopped government or corporate abuses, and set precedents that helped thousands.

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Date Filed

December 03, 2018

Peter Sean Brown was illegally detained in Florida’s Monroe County jail for deportation despite his repeated pleas to authorities that he was a U.S. citizen and the county’s own jail file showing that he was born in Philadelphia. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Brown, whose Fourth...

Date Filed

November 29, 2018

In 2018, the Duval County School Board in Florida began hiring armed civilians, known as “school safety assistants,” to patrol the district’s elementary schools. The program threatened the safety of thousands of students by opening the door for inadequately trained assistants – who are not law...

Date Filed

November 19, 2018

Alabama unlawfully suspended the driver’s licenses of thousands of people unable to pay traffic tickets. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the state from suspending licenses without considering a person’s ability to pay and finding that the person willfully failed to pay. It also sought...

Date Filed

November 07, 2018

The Martinez family was traveling along a Mississippi highway in 2017 – on their way to a vacation – when a sheriff’s deputy stopped them for no apparent reason. The family was then detained by the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office for approximately four hours based solely on the fact that they...

Date Filed

October 17, 2018

After the U.S. Department of Education failed to fully comply with public records requests that could shed light on the gun lobby’s possible role in the department not standing in the way of states and school districts using federal funds to arm educators, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the...

Date Filed

August 14, 2018

Charles Gresham has had trouble finding and keeping work because of issues related to his seizures. He received a notice from the state of Arkansas that if he did not meet a requirement to work 20 hours a week, he would lose his Medicaid coverage. When he tried to report his work hours to the...

Date Filed

May 30, 2018

The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has revoked the licenses of hundreds of thousands of people simply because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and court costs. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit seeking to end the practice, which disproportionately harms African-American...

Date Filed

April 17, 2018

Detained immigrants were forced to work for as little as $1 a day to clean, cook and maintain a privately operated immigrant detention center in Stewart County, Georgia, as part of a scheme to maximize its profits, according to a class action lawsuit the SPLC filed against the private prison...

Date Filed

April 13, 2018

On April 3, 2018, journalist Manuel Duran was unlawfully arrested by Memphis police while reporting live at a peaceful demonstration connected with the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Even after the charges were dropped, local officials handed him over to U.S...